Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Last week kinda blew, or at least that is what I was doing with my nose for the better part of the week. Blah! So I rested up and was off both Thursday and Friday. I think I took off more on the account of that I had stuff on rather than trying to get a rest.

Friday I met up with my ole college gal pal TriSaraTops and we drove down to Columbus to meet up with our other ole college roomie TriShannon! It was a fun filled day complete with food, laughs, smores and fun! It is good to know that some things never change as we still quote Waynes World and laugh at Shannon when she orders her plain food!

Saturday I hit the Buckeye Trail for the muddiest run yet. Wow it can be quite slippery in that thick mud and let's not even talk about what the shoes looked like afterwards. Then my muddy butt drove a little further south to hit a Excel Cycling class. I was good and tired after those 4.5 + hours of working out that morning and HUNGRY!!!

So I ate some good ole country cooking at the local Amish restaurant, Mary Yoders....yum!!! After I had a good base in my belly and cleaned the house, I was all set for the gathering at my place that night. Ole high school pals rolled on over and the beer flowed as we had shots, played cards, danced to the music!!!

And then the alarm clock rang and I hit it so hard that it fell off my night stand. Crap! It is dark and I am hungover, but I had plans to run so I rolled my butt out of bed. I met up with my group and we embarked on a very warm 8 mile trek. Sweating out the alcohol felt good but after the one huge climb I think the tequila in me was doing some sort of tribal dance in my belly! No worries though I made it home just fine to wrap some gifts and head out for some more last minute shopping!

Monday I awoke early again for another group run! My running club, Southeast Running Club had their annual 13.1 mile holiday run out at Bedford Reservation. I was dragging the minute I got up that day, but I was decked out in my holiday outfit in my red polk-a-dot tall socks and shorts in the very windy 27 degree weather. A few other folks were in shorts but none were quite as decked out as these guys.

If only they had been there, perhaps my run would have felt easier!!!!

My cold which was settling further and further down in to my chest and throat gripped my chest as I jogged up and down the rollers. Thank goodness for E and Amy who helped motivate me along as I struggled to talk. Finally many rollers and 2 descent climbs later we arrived back to the cars about 1:45 later. I was so happy to be done!!! The group headed out to breakfast and I chugged a vat of coffee to warm up. Funny thing was as soon as I got home I proceeded to fall right to sleep on the couch. I was just tuckered out!

Holidays were awesome as always. The hubby makes a mighty fine Santa and it is always good to hang with the family and my lil nieces!

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Saturday morning I was flying high! I headed out to the Buckeye Trail for a fun 20 miler. Although it took us 4.5 hours and I fell on an icy rock in the creek, I felt fantastic after running in the 27 degree weather. Some days you run with a fantastic group and you talk and laugh and you realize you are done before you know it. I must be getting used to the trail as I was not unbelievably fatigued like I used to get after a long trail run as I worked muscles I was not used to using.

As the day wore on and the snow started to fall, I started to feel stuffier and stuffier. I was a bit bummed that night as the roads were so crappy that my hubby had to go plow and we had to miss not one, but two parties that were on the agenda for that evening. It was just as well, I suppose (YET I HATE TO MISS A GOOD PARTY, ESPECIALLY A DISCO PARTY WITH OLE FRIENDS!!!) as I my headcold was angry by the time I went to bed.

I awoke Sunday with my head in the clouds, as I got up to go run in Solon. The snow had turned to rain and I was not sure what the roads were like. I felt awful. Without too much delay I returned to bed to bury my pressured head beneathe the covers. I had intentions to run that morning and also to get in a trainer ride. After pushing it back and pushing it back, it never did happen.

It is Wednesday now and I still feel icky. I have managed to get workouts in the last 2 days and really it is the only time the sinus pressure feels better. I like to think that as my cold wet sweat soaks my clothes that my germs are being sweat out. I think today I finally feel a bit better than the last three days, but still not good. Why does it always seem that you get sick on the weeks that you have the most on and you are so busy when all you want to do is rest????

Thursday, December 06, 2007

Yes, it is true due in no small part to ESpeed who has got me swimming with her. She still zooms through the water tons faster than me but I am hoping that a little more pool time will pay off.

Last year my general swim workout was on my lunch hour when I would drive to the gym, change as quick as I could, swim 1000 yards, shower and get ready and drive back to work all in that hour.

The 1000 yards was always just a straight set at an easy to moderate pace. No drills, nothing working with speed.

Now E has me trying all sorts of things. Since we started swimming together I have learned pull drills and kick drills, worked with shorter fast sets, and I have even been enjoying it!!!

As a benchmark for me to reference later (no laughing at my times please!!!)

100 meters free 2:02 first set. Other ssets around 2:06-2:07.

200 meters free 4:17. Other sets around 4:20+

Then I tried a little test to see how my 200 free compared to my 200 pull. I have always known I had issues with my lower half dragging in the water and not being as efficient with my kick as I should be. I try to work on pushing my chest down to bring up my rear end.

Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Last night I hit the first class of my prepaid 17 of Pete Gladden's indoor cycling clinics as I promised I would do with money I won from Fat Rabbit.

This year the name has changed from New Vision Cycling to Excel in Cycling and the location is also different (still far, but I think it is a little more convenient for me!). Everytime I have had the opportunity to train with Pete, he has never disappointed me. These workouts include music which is choreographed to the cycling, video footage on the big screen and led by Pete with a variety of drills to help people become more proficient cyclists.

As I drove down to Akron I nibbled on some pretzels as I was sort of hungry and figured I needed something in my belly. You see I have gotten into the habbit of keeping a ziploc bagful of pretzels in my car all the time these days. It is so often I leave a workout or find myself on the road just dying for something to eat. Don't fear as now my pretzels save me!

I hopped on my trainer just around 6:20 to start warming up. It did not take long before the sweat started to form and start the disturbing puddle which would be under my bicycle by the end of class.

As I started class I knew it may be rough. I was somewhat drained from the amount of training I had put in over the last few days.

We started with spin ups. You start in a very easy gear and based upon your group you have a cadence you must hit. I seeded myself in the B/C group. So I started at 100-105 rpm for a minute and bumped it up by 5 rpm each minute to 125 and then went back down each descending minute. We rested for 3 minutes and repeated the pyramid starting 5 higher.

We did one leg drills between around 50 rpm at a hard gear making sure our pedal stroke was very even.

We did an 8 minute (which will build to 20) overgear drill. (Pedaling with about as much resistance as you can handle at a particular cadence) For some reason I like these as I think I have always been somewhat of a gear masher.

One drill we did alternating increments of big ring (work) / little ring (recovery)where I would try to get above 100 at a hard gear as we alternated 5 sec on 55 seconds recovery, 10/50, 15/45 and so on up to 50/10. I stopped at 30/30 and repeated that 3 times as I was whooped. After a recovery we repeated.

I ate some cliff blocks-the cran razz flavor as my tank was empty. Mmmm, these are delicious little gummy things!

Then in the main set, we did these sprint things. My low end was supposed to be 100 rpm (for 40 seconds) by my group and my high end was 120 rpm (for 20 seconds) We did 10 of those.

Then we did a cooldown and I hopped my sore butt off my bike at 8:30. Oh my sweat pile was big and nasty and I was so tired! My bike lingo stinks but I wanted to get it down so I can remember what we did so I can try to practice this on my own. I grabbed a gearing sheet. I vow to learn my gears this year...finally!

Monday, December 03, 2007

Well Saturday I ended the season on a high note with another PR. Despite the fact that I feel I am not in optimal condition and my speedwork has definitely been lackluster, I managed to pull out a 10 second PR on the day!

It was a great day all and all despite being on the cold side around 27 degrees. The Reindeer Run is a nice flat fast course which is an out and back with a loop at the turnaround. I enjoyed a nice 30 minute warm up with Salty and ESpeed and then we wrapped things up with some strides which was a new thing for me and something I will try to incorporate in the future.

As we lined up I took off behind E and JP. Mile 1 6:15. It seemed that I was jockeying for position more than I wanted and I felt I needed to back off a bit as I was tiring. I came into the day with some extremely sore hamstrings from hard bodies class on Thursday and did nothing to loosen things up on Friday like I had originally planned.

During mile 2, two girls passed me and I let them go. The footing was a little rough which slowed the mile a bit but mostly it was just me slowing down. Mile 2 6:50.

Ouch, 6:50 disappointed me a bit as I thought it would be next to impossible to break 20. Oh well there would be other days, but I did try to pick it up a bit knowing there was only a mile to go.

Mile 3 6:34. Final 0.1, 39 sec. I finished in 20:18 (~6:35 pace), a PR by 10 seconds! While it was not below 20, it was a PR, so who can complain!

To make things better ESpeed, JP, Salty, and JT all PR'd and ran fantastic races!!! There was much to cheer for at the awards ceremony as Salty claimed 3rd overall female with a smoking fast time of 18:49, E got 1st in Age Group (HUGE PR with a 19:23!!), JT got 3rd in AG, JP got 1st AG and I got 1st AG. Luckily for this group of gals we have our ages spread out nicely between the 25-39 groups!!!